Dr. William Hammer of Augustana College, Illinois, made his first trip in search of fossil vertebrates in the Central Transantarctic Mountains as a graduate student in 1977. Since then he has led six expeditions to Antarctica. In a lecture at the Burke Museum, he will discuss Jurassic dinosaurs, scavenging theropods, a new sauropodomorph, a "beaver-like" tritylodont, a pterosaur or flying reptile, as well as other Jurassic finds from his over 30 years of research into the secrets of Antarctica.

Dr. Hammer is currently a professor of geology, the director of the Fryxell Geology Museum, and director of the Center for Polar Studies at Augustana College in Illinois. He is also a research associate of the Field Museum of Natural History.Antarctica is the most hostile continent on Earth today, but it has not always been covered in ice.

This lecture is offered in conjunction with the Burke's latest exhibit, Wondrous Cold: An Antarctic Journey which includes real fossils collected by Dr. Hammer alongside photographs by Joan Myers, who spent October 2002 through January 2003 in Antarctica. Wondrous Cold tells the story of human life and research on the world's most unfriendly continent.

Wondrous Cold is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and made possible through the generous support of Quark Expeditions.

This event is free to the public.